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Michele Bartoli Cain is a trial lawyer. She concentrates her practice in the areas of dental malpractice, medical malpractice, personal injury and wrongful death. Michele has obtained substantial recoveries for clients who have suffered significant injury or death from the negligence of doctors and dentists.

After graduating from Wake Forest University School of Law, Michele litigated products liability and complex commercial cases, helping to bring down the silver cartel. Later, Michele realized her true passion while advocating for a badly-injured victim of dental malpractice, whose life would never be the same. Since that moment twenty years ago, Michele has dedicated her career to serving those seriously injured by the professional negligence of others, holding dentists and doctors accountable throughout the DC region and beyond. She concentrates her practice in the niche field of dental medicine and has achieved significant verdicts and settlements for dental malpractice clients in Virginia, DC and Maryland.

In 2005, Michele decided to launch her own firm in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia and she led that firm until 2022, when she joined Shulman Rogers with the opening of the Alexandria, Virginia office. She serves clients throughout Northern Virginia and Washington, DC.

Recognized by her peers as a top advocate in her field, Michele is rated AV (“preeminent”) by Martindale-Hubbell, the leading attorney-ranking service. Michele also is listed in Best Lawyers, has been named a Washington, DC “Superlawyer,” and repeatedly has been selected as one of the Best Personal Injury Attorneys in the Washington, DC area by Washingtonian magazine including most recently in September 2022.

Michele is an active member of the American Bar Association and The American Association for Justice and has been inducted into the Etheridge Society, the preeminent medical malpractice honor society. She is a charter member of the National Museum for Women in the Arts, a member of the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association, the Board of Governors of the Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington D.C. and is a longtime member of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association.

As a recognized leader in her field, Michele has often lectured to groups of physicians and dentists. She feels that her duty as an attorney is to not only litigate for justice, but also to assist physicians to improve the quality of health care they render to avoid injury to their patients. Most recently in the Spring of 2022, alongside Shulman Rogers attorney, Karl J, Protil, Michele gave a presentation on risk management to the doctors and nurses of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

A dedicated resident of Alexandria, Virginia, Michele consistently participates in community events. When she is not passionately representing her clients or spending time with family, she enjoys working in her garden and is avid about opera. She loves to introduce opera to the young community and has this as her mission in over a decade of service as a director of the Washington Concert Opera.

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In 2022, Michele’s firm grossed over 7 million dollars in settlements and verdicts. In one of the first trials resuming post-pandemic, in March, 2022, Michele Bartoli Cain, in association with Charles Rothermel and others, achieved a jury verdict of $445,000.00 for a female client who suffered a fractured jaw during dental treatment. Among many cases she resolved during the pandemic, Michele achieved a notable settlement of $1,400,000.00 in 2021 on behalf of a client who suffered a profound dental infection. Midway through a trial in March 2020, a million-dollar settlement was achieved for a hysterectomy injury. On March 1, 2019, Michele Bartoli Cain, in association with Anthony Russell and others, achieved a unanimous $625,000 jury verdict in the matter of Piller v. Corey C. Crigler a/k/a Corey C. Burgoyne, DMD et al, a zero-offer oral surgery malpractice case tried in the Augusta County Circuit Court of Virginia. In the Piller case, the minor plaintiff had been injured during a wisdom tooth extraction at age twelve. The defendant, an oral surgeon, perforated the lingual plate with a drill and completely severed the left lingual nerve during the extraction. The injuries the young plaintiff suffered resulted in numbness, hypersensitivity, discomfort and pain that will last for the rest of her life. Michele states, “The defendant refused to accept responsibility for her negligence, and we were forced to proceed to a jury trial to hold her accountable and advance the cause of safety in oral surgery, which helps protect the public from such future injuries. It is cases such as this which provide justice in medical malpractice matters….”

Michele’s reputation and her advocacy in significant cases earned her appointment in 2022 to the Board of Governors of the Metropolitan Washington, DC Trial Lawyers Association (DCTLA), being named in 2020 as an Influential Woman of the Law and her induction in 2019 as a Fellow of the American Bar Association.